Truth be told, in the past year the very thought of disciplining any pirates had made her decidedly queasy. The Commodore's ever fierce and gruesome descriptions of his desired punishments called to Elizabeth's mind a frightening image of a rotting skeleton, made recognizable by his many tattered scarves and bangles. Strange as it seemed to her, Elizabeth could not bear the thought of Jack Sparrow hanging in a gibbet or from a yardarm; but, she supposed, there were some experiences that you could not come out of with another person without being friends, and surviving a battle with skeletal, bloodthirsty pirates was one of them.
Elizabeth, as she dressed, found herself very much missing Jack, and very much wishing that she were sailing off into the sunset on the Pearl, and not attending an airless discussion of the etiquette of torture: when it was appropriate, if it ever wasn't appropriate, how many pirates did they think they had left to catch before wiping them out, and how they would catch the most elusive sea robbers. Of course, Jack Sparrow was at the top of their list. She took a deep breath, checked her appearance one last time in the ornate mirror of her room, and descended the stairs, hoping that at least Captain Barkin, of Port Royal's main privateer ship, had brought his wife Ellen along to the supper so she might have someone interesting to talk to.
Will Turner was currently at his new forge, a small but sturdy little shop in the center of the town. It wasn't much, but it was his own to claim and he was apprenticed to no man, a situation he quickly adapted to. He chuckled quietly to himself, musing that this was yet another quality Jack Sparrow would label as most pirate- like. Will found himself thinking more and more about Jack Sparrow- he was happy with his life; he loved his forge, he loved his wife, he loved his work, he even loved their ramshackle and leaning little house near the beach- but he wondered if there may have been truth to Jack's words. Will was no fool; though Jack's movements and mumblings may seem like insanity, he spoke with a wisdom beyond what one would expect from a sunburned pirate captain. Still deep in thought, Will resumed the in-depth cleaning job that his fixer-upper of a shop required.
